Upcoming Meeting Notice

The Association of Service and Computer Dealers International (ASCDI) is a 30 year old, worldwide non-profit organization made up of companies who provide technology solutions, technical support or value added services to the business community.

Members and non-members are invited to learn how to grow your business, find new business opportunities, hear from industry representatives and enjoy some fabulous networking events at our conferences:

FALL CONFERENCE: October 7 - 9, 2009
New York City

Click here for more information on ALL ASCDI MEETINGS, to view the agendas, lodging details, attendee lists and to REGISTER AT THE EARLY BIRD RATE.

Case study
HP
IBM
Intermec
iSeries
Market
SMB
Storage

Case study

Stratapult selects UC4 Workload Automation Suite
UC4 Software, a leading global provider of workload automation, job scheduling and IT process optimization solutions, announces Inmar Stratapult Technology Solutions (Inmar) has selected its Workload Automation Suite. Inmar provides reverse logistics, supply-chain, and promotion logistic services which leverage custom technology solutions. Inmar selected UC4 for its dynamic job scheduler that can centralize process management across all applications and architectures, and had the capabilities to meet the needs of back-office and web-based applications delivered in a real-time "software as a service" solution. Inmar Stratapult Technology Solutions is currently implementing UC4's Workload Automation Suite to automate processing including handling returned goods and recalls, for reverse logistics clients within consumer goods, healthcare, electronics and other industries. UC4's scalable solution will allow Inmar to extend their workload automation platform to more applications and clients in the future.
Visit www.uc4.com or www.inmar.com.
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HP

HP to Sun customers: “We’ve got your back”
HP announced a new program to support the increasing number of Sun customers looking to transition to a more cost-effective server and storage platform. HP’s Sun Complete Care program combines one of the industry’s broadest technology portfolios and the company’s highly experienced team of professionals with a wide range of transition and modernization services to drive value for customers. More than 100 customers have chosen to migrate to HP server and storage platforms over the last six months. The HP Sun Complete Care program offers customers a wide variety of specialized services, support programs and financial incentives. These include business case development, assessment, design, migration and support to financing options, as well as education programs and trade-in opportunities on hardware and software. Additionally, as part of the company’s “green” initiative, HP will dispose of customers’ retired or obsolete technology assets. Customers can realize significant cost savings by using an HP server platform while staying on the Solaris operating environment. They can also choose to migrate to Linux, HP-UX, or Microsoft Windows. To ease the transition, HP provides a single point of accountability for purchase and life cycle support of Solaris on HP servers.
Visit www.hp.com.



HP acquires IBRIX to extend scale-out storage capabilities to global customers
HP and IBRIX announced a definitive agreement for HP to acquire IBRIX, a leading provider of enterprise-class file serving software that includes data protection, high-availability features and data management services for extreme scale-out, cloud and high-performance computing deployments. Founded in 2000, and an HP partner for three years, IBRIX is privately held and headquartered in Billerica, Mass. It has 53 employees and more than 175 enterprise customers spanning the communications, media, entertainment, Internet, oil and gas, healthcare, life sciences and financial services markets. The value of the transaction is not disclosed. Adding IBRIX’s software to HP’s portfolio further solidifies the company’s leadership in the emerging market of scale-out and high-performance computing storage, cloud storage and fixed content archiving. This market is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 20 percent per year, which is faster than both the network-attached storage and total external storage markets.
Visit www.hp.com or www.ibrix.com. ^Back To Top

IBM

IBM's strategic focus beats the tech slump
Don't get the wrong impression from IBM's stronger-than-expected performance in the second quarter. Coming two days after surprisingly strong results by fellow tech titan Intel, Big Blue's numbers might be seen as further evidence that a recovery looms. But IBM said revenue declined 13%, to $23.3 billion, slightly more than analysts expected, so there's no sign here of an overall uptick in demand from corporate technology purchasers. At the same time, IBM's net income rose 12%, to $3.1 billion, and it beat the earnings-per-share estimates of analysts by 30¢, or nearly 10%. The company also issued a more bullish profit forecast for 2009. Bottom line: Under CEO Sam Palmisano, IBM is operating very well under miserable business conditions, and his decision to jettison less-profitable divisions in the past half-decade at a time when rivals were adding heft in several areas is paying off. IBM's strength is showing up in software and services. Software revenue fell a modest 7%, to $5.2 billion, but the pretax profit margin grew by a whopping 8.3%, to 32%. The company's global services revenue declined 12%, to $13.4 billion, but pretax profits increased 23%. Profit margins in the technology services piece of the business increased by 5.4 percentage points, to 14.9%.
Visit www.ibm.com.



Zend Solution included in IBM Smart Business
Zend Technologies, Inc. announced that IBM will ship Zend’s solution for PHP in every IBM Smart Business system in order to provide their customers with reliability, performance and security for PHP-based Web applications. The announcement marks a significant expansion of the IBM and Zend partnership by now including PHP on Linux operating systems and x86 hardware in addition to IBM i OS and Power Systems hardware. Software vendors participating in IBM’s Smart Business market are providing turnkey PHP web applications and will benefit from the high performance and automatic updates available with Zend’s web application solution. Zend’s offering includes PHP in a standardized form that is automatically updated via IBM’s integrated support software for applications that are designed for IBM Smart Business systems. This means a business owner’s IBM Smart Business system gets a complete, certified PHP stack with automated software updates and security patches. Zend supports the most popular databases, including DB2, as well as broadly used operating systems, including Linux and IBM i.
Visit www.ibm.com or www.zend.com.
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Intermec

Intermec unveils fastest and only smart rugged mobile receipt and invoice printers
Intermec announced the addition of three new rugged mobile printers to its PB product family – the PB21, PB31 and PB51. The new printers feature two times more memory, print twenty to thirty percent faster than competing solutions, and are the industry’s only “Smart” rugged mobile receipt and invoice printers. The two, three, and four inch printers enable mobile workforces in route accounting, transportation and logistics, retail and field service applications to print high quality, graphically complex receipts. The printers’ unrivaled reliability and durability allow customers to decrease maintenance costs resulting from hardware failure and associated support. With a wide temperature range, humidity and IP54 seal ratings, six and a half foot (two meter) drop specification, and 50g shock rating, the new rugged mobile printers can withstand the rigors of the most demanding environments.
Visit www.intermec.com.
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iSeries

SafeData educates market on IBM iSeries high availability options
SafeData, LLC announced the publication of a new white paper titled “High Confidence in IBM iSeries High Availability: Six Ways Businesses Can Win Big with High Availability Managed Services.” Ensuring the operational continuity of today's 24/7 IBM iSeries environments is critical for the productivity and profitability of a business and the high availability options often come at a high price tag for companies with tight IT budgets. This new white paper discusses the growing trend of outsourcing the management of a business' high availability environment to experts. It examines the challenges associated with high availability for the iSeries and how using a managed services approach can prove beneficial to a business of any size.
The white paper is available for download at: http://www.safedata.net/papers_reg_isha.asp.
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Market

Top 25 most influential technology vendors
Aberdeen Group announced the release of its "2009 State of the Market: Mid Year Insights Report" which comes at a time when organizations are in the midst of making decisions that could determine their viability over the next few quarters. While organizations today are faced with the obvious economic uncertainty, corporate leaders are also tasked with the dynamics of a new millennial work force, sustainability imperatives as well as growing governance and regulatory issues. Based on a global survey of 1,607 executives from 36 countries, the report highlights the best practices and recommended actions for managing customers, employees, products, services and information technology in today's volatile market. Research survey participants were asked to identify the top three technology companies that had the most influence on their organization over the course of the past year. The question was presented in an open text format to elicit unaided, top-of-mind responses. The most frequent responses include, in order:  Microsoft, IBM, Oracle Corp., Hewlett Packard, SAP, Dell Inc., Cisco Systems, Salesforce.com, Google, EMC, Sun Microsystems, Apple, Infor, Sage, Siemens, RIM, Adobe, AT&T, Intel, Lenovo, Accenture, TATA Consultancy, Lawson, Motorola and ADP.
Visit http://resources.aberdeen.com/2009AberdeenReport.
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SMB

HP offers small businesses more value for better business results
HP announced updates to and expanded availability of HP Access, its small and midsize business (SMB) assistance program, making it easier than ever for people to save money while managing, protecting and growing their businesses. Providing customers with discounts, free software and services, offers and training that are tailored to fit the needs of SMBs, HP Access is part of the HP Total Care program, which helps businesses get more value from their HP purchases. Previously offered at a list price of $49, HP Access is now free with the purchase of any HP product. Customers wanting to participate simply request an access code and they will receive an email from HP with the information and a link to the HP Access website. New customers, as well as those who purchased an HP product in the last 12 months, can take advantage of offers on the site. HP also has expanded the program for its channel partners, allowing them to pass along benefits to their customers. For customers purchasing products from a channel partner, the email containing the access code will come from the partner.
Visit www.hp.com/go/hpaccess.
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Storage

Barracuda Networks introduces market disruptive pricing and simplified user interface
Barracuda Networks Inc. announced enhancements to the user interface of the BarracudaWare Yosemite Server Backup that will drastically improve the customer experience. In addition, with a simplified pricing structure that features only four options -- ranging from $299 for single server to only $1499 for unlimited usage -- Yosemite Server Backup is an affordable data protection solution. Barracuda Networks has reduced the number of screens used within the interface to help ease the navigation and deployment of the solution on the customer's network. The user interface also makes scheduling backups easy through a simple calendar interface. For removable media systems, Yosemite Server Backup can automate and guide an organization's tape rotation strategy. For automated media libraries, Yosemite Server Backup can automatically control any robotics that load media. Automated email notifications can keep administrators informed of backup completions or any problems encountered during backup operations.
Visit www.barracudaware.com.
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